VRBO - Bayeux, FR

We took a long train ride (150 miles) from Paris to Bayeux, our stepping off point for visiting the Normandy beaches.  We arrived a little early to check into our VRBO, so we had lunch, more French style, at 1:30.  After checking in, we ambled around town.  They had just celebrated the 80th anniversary of the invasion on June 6th so the town is still decked out in American, Canadian and British flags.  

We took the obligatory walk through the cathedral (not sure why I need to go into every cathedral I see).  The cathedral was started in 1077 but was nearly destroyed in the 12th century and then rebuilt in the 15th century and completed in the 19th century.  Deb liked it because it has thousands of gargoyles, most of which were pretty secular (like two cherubs heads together sharing one eye)

Today was just a get acquainted with the town day.  We found a few interesting restaurants and a market where we could buy cheese and wine and instant coffee.  And a small loaf of fresh bread for $.75!  

Bayeux is a British and American tourist destination, so all our acquired French dinner time rules do not apply.  Restaurants are full by 6:30, sacré bleu!

Hotel Villathéna - Paris

 We have nearly completed our first day in France. So let’s be completely honest here.  After diligently doing little French lessons for a year, we are still pretty much stuck at “Merci” and “si vous plaît”. 

As we have found before, language is not really the problem.  It’s figuring out when to eat in Europe that always eludes us.  By the time we had reached Paris, we had eaten two dinners: pizza at the airport and shepherds pie somewhere over Newfoundland and a tiny little breakfast snack over the Atlantic at about 3:00AM.  Once we got to hotel to drop off our bags, the bed looked so inviting that we decided to forego lunch for a short nap.  After all, google says that many places stay open all afternoon.  Maybe they do where google lives but not here in Paris. 

Look all ways before crossing!

We set out from the hotel and after a short hike we found a “fast food” eatery.  Deb had a chai latte, while adventurous me had a “golden latte”. Turns out that in a golden latte they replace the chai with curry.  Well there’s a pick me up!  

According to Google, Parisians eat dinner around 8:00.  We arrived at our little sidewalk cafe at 7:00 for dinner and the place was packed, but, voila!, everyone was just drinking.  We finished our dinner by 8:30 (they put us in a back room so as not to upset their regular clientele) and, voila!, the place was still packed with people just drinking.  So when do they eat? Tomorrow, we will slooth this out and report back!

France Trip

 Tomorrow, we head off to France for two weeks in Normandy and Brittany.  Our plan is to fly to Paris, spend one night and then off to Bayeaux for a few days.  We ar3 scheduled for a tour of of the Normandy Invasion (we didn’t realize it would be only a few days after the 80th anniversary).  Then to Brittany for the rest of the time.  Finally back in Paris, we plan to see Notre Dame, and fly home.

Home Again

We put the boat in bristol fashion, ready for our check-out inspection by 9:00 AM.  We managed to book 22.3 hours of engine time, broke one soup bowl, and filled the gray water tank to capacity.  George had a poutine breakfast while the rest of us watched in horror as we ate somewhat more conventional breakfasts.  By 9:30, we had said our goodbyes and promised to do this again…sometime.

We backtracked our trip to Smiths Falls, coming close to Montreal.  Deb thought it would be interesting to actually stop at “Habitat 67,” the condo complex designed through the inspiration of a McGill graduate student’s masters thesis.  There is a website that

offers tours of the buildings but not on the day that we were there.  Scrolling further down in the website reveals an interesting fact, and one that might help to explain Deb’s fascination with the building…it was originally designed using Lego’s!

Back home by 6:00 in the evening, one more dinner out before stepping on the scale to assess the damages!

Smiths Falls - Rideau Canal , CN

A little over the top!

 Our last day,  a 30km motoring back to the rental base.  The weather for the past week has been mostly hot, but today is decidedly cold.  The boat can be steered from inside or up top on the fly bridge.  George, likes to drive from the fly bridge, but after about half an hour decides to check out driving from inside.  After about another half hour, I can feel my fingers again, but not for long, because George has decided to drive from the fly bridge again.  All in all, a nice, but cool, trip back.  

We bought two boxes of wine, one white and one red.  It would be a shame to waste it…so we pretty much finish it off along with the rest of the cheese and crackers.  Deb has made marinara with the left over tomatoes and turkey.  It appears that we still have a bottle of salad dressing left, but that’s about it.  

Our bags are packed and we are ready for our 9:00 check-out tomorrow.  I haven’t decided whether or not to confess to breaking a bowl.  Maybe, I’ll just leave $3 CAD on the table and call it even.

The Narrows (redux) - Rideau Canal, CN

 As planned, we left the Narrows to go to Westport, ate lunch, and returned to exactly where we started but  facing the other way.  We started the morning with pea meal bacon, apparently the real deal for what we refer to as Canadian bacon. (it’s thin slices of pork in corn meal). After “locking-thru” we motored to Westport.  The most exciting part was not noticing the channel markers as we were coming into the town dock, but fortunately there were enough people screaming at us that we didn’t go aground before getting into the channel.  Westport is a lovely town, the ice cream parlor was closed for school break(?) but the local brewery was in full swing.

Now that we are on the fall schedule, the latest that we could “lock-thru” was 4:15, but we made it back and managed to “lock-thru” with 5 of our new best friends.  

Tomorrow, despite the chance of rain, will be our last day on the channel.  We motor back to Smiths Falls so we can be there before 9:00 AM the next day.  Back to the math problems, there is a lock just before Smiths Falls that doesn’t open until 10:00, so you need to get there the night before! I’m sure there is some sort of cosmic logic to all this, but if it were me… you shouldn’t make all our customers start their trip after all the locks were closed and end their trip before all the locks were open.  There, I’ve said my peace, I feel better…well not actually.

The Narrows - Rideau Canal, CN

 

We got to Perth yesterday, in shorts and a t-shirt…left with long pants, long sleeved shirt and a rain jacket.  Needless to say the heatwave has broken.  The day was half navigating the 12’ wide Tay Canal and half being on the open waters of the Big Rideau Lake.  We have three reference manuals, our topographical MacBook, our info book on the locks, and a general interest book about the canals and the towns.  With the three combined we have decided to spend the night on the downstream side of the Narrow Lock, which is the only side that has power, tomorrow we will go through the lock when it opens at 9:00 because it is a week-end and on the fall hours and go to Westport…eat lunch and return by 4:15 to get through the lock again to be back on the downstream side.  It’s a little bit higher level math than just dealing with tide tables.  

Canadian wine and cheese followed by the local speciality for dinner, pork wrapped in bacon and beef steak.  My fishing has yielded nothing but sunfish, but I still have a few more days.